Today, I am posting it again because I believe the HN readers will benefit from it. Why? The majority of HN readers work in IT or adjacent information fields; we communicate information with strings aka words.
Falsehoods programmers believe about strings: All strings are words.
More seriously: While I find the topic appropriate for HN, connecting the topicality to the use of strings in IT is weird. If the ban only applied to audio or sign language, the topic wouldn’t be any less appropriate.
Sounds like the Republican party would really support the adoption Newspeak.
> It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.
"Black"? Being a black man I am more interested in the context in which this list is applied and hope just the list/words in the abstract are not being simply used as rage bait.
Edit: I no longer think me being a black male is relevant in this context because after looking further into the list it basically covers multiple terms that apply to everyone; thus I think context of application is even more important and the list in itself is fairly irrelevant.
In the context of "anti-woke" ideology. Many people currently in power believe that if we do not talk about race, by literally not using the words, that longstanding societal issues will simply disappear. Same too with many scientific principals. In power or not, these people are idiots.
Agreed, but I and obviously you are not and we do not have to pretend to be by becoming enraged at their idiotic behavior if it has no material impact.
Secondly, I do not agree that they think issues will "disappear"; I believe that they simply think this gives them license to impose their will on the groups that identify with said banned terms.
It's an ostrich worldview, it occurs in other contexts well:
Trump on COVID: "If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any"
Or more recently, Trump March EO from March: "Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame"
So they see efforts so shed light on America's dark history as deepinging social devide and fostering national shame. What's the proposed solution? Make everything right? Bring accountability? No, it's ostrich time! The order:
“ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties … do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living … and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.”
A court-ordered inventory showed that the Park Service had removed at least 51 exhibits from 37 parks and monuments. The removed or targeted material involved slavery, civil rights, Indigenous history, womens rights, Japanese American incarceration, LGBTQ history, and climate change.
They do the opposite as well: saying things and insisting that alone makes them true.
e.g. Renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Claiming the 2020 election was rigged. Deciding they have the unilateral right to invade countries.
> Many people currently in power believe that if we do not talk about race, by literally not using the words, that longstanding societal issues will simply disappear.
Australia used to have a "White Australia Policy". It was introduced in 1901, but began to be progressively relaxed after WW2 before finally being completely abolished in 1973. The policy involved a general ban on non-European immigrants - and even at times Eastern and Southern Europeans too – although it was never exceptionless (e.g. Maori immigration was always allowed, to avoid upsetting New Zealand; originally only Ashkenazi Jews were allowed to immigrate, but in the 1950s they started allowing Middle Eastern Jews as well.)
So, in that respect, Australia does have certain parallels to US history on race; and the dismantling of the White Australia Policy roughly overlaps the US Civil Rights Era, and Australian developments were likely partially influenced by that concurrent struggle in the US.
However, the way post-1973 Australian officialdom responded to the abolition of the White Australian Policy was very different from subsequent developments in the US. The Australian official philosophy was to stop classifying people on the basis of race – the Australian census asks about ancestry, country of birth (for both self and parents), ethnic identity, indigenous status, language, nationality, religion–but never race; all these concepts partially overlap with notions of "race", but none of them can be straightforwardly identified with it. In fact, the Australian Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups (ASCCEG), groups ethnicities together based on continent of origin, not "race" – so African-Americans and White Americans are grouped together as "peoples of the Americas", while Egyptians and Kenyans and Afrikaners are all "peoples of Africa".
Now, this decision didn't magically solve all issues with inequality and discrimination in Australia – but did it cause harm? My own honest impression is that, overall, its benefits have likely outweighed the downsides. And, due to the influence of US media, there has been a growing subset of Australians – primarily on the left – who have adopted more US-influenced ways of thinking about and speaking about race and ethnicity – and I'm not convinced that has been beneficial.
Of course, whatever Trump and the GOP are doing isn't necessarily the same thing as what Australian politicians and bureaucrats – on both sides of the political aisle – have done. There are significant differences in context and history. But they aren't completely different either. My own impression as an outside observer of the US, is a lot of narratives which Americans tell themselves (on both sides) make the most sense when you avoid looking at other countries as comparators.
Postscript: inevitably some will respond by bringing Indigneous matters into the discussion–but indigeneity and race are fundamentally different things. To quote Australian Indigenous activist Noel Pearson, "If we were in Lapland, we would be blond and blue-eyed and we’d still be Indigenous.” Consider someone like Dr Gordon Reid MP, the federal Member for Robertson – he publicly identifies as a "proud Wiradjuri man", but physically he appears indistinguishable from Anglo-Celtic Australians.
Not an American but, if I had to guess, it would be 'Black' with a capital letter (as in the list of words) and not 'black' all in lowercase. It is likely to align the use of capital letters with other races in the US (white and black, for example, instead of white and Black).
Their CEO was in the Obama admin, and they didn't really press Biden/Obama to the same extent with high profile advocacy on whistleblowers, Assange, Espionage Act, etc.
It has reached beyond government institutions. From the linked article:
"These policies’ tentacles already extend beyond government websites... Reports say scientists are self-censoring in hopes of improving their chances of getting government grants."
In regards to government institutions, limiting speech in this way will cause people to die.
For example, banning the phrase "air pollution" will curtail efforts to address air pollution, e.g. scientists not submitting research proposals addressing air pollution, causing people to die as a result[1].
Diesel, Ethanol, Pyrolysis? Haha, odd. I know this is supposed to be “not allowed in government documents” and so on but I think it would be useful to have a list of “words that are not permitted to be used in the US”.
It could be a convenience list that one could refer to to ensure that they’re not about to say a banned word. E.g. obviously the n word and r word are on it, but is homeless on it? Gay? A single source of truth to know what you’re not allowed to say would be good.
I posted this yesterday, it was flagged.
Today, I am posting it again because I believe the HN readers will benefit from it. Why? The majority of HN readers work in IT or adjacent information fields; we communicate information with strings aka words.
It has been flagged again after being #1 on frontpage.
Falsehoods programmers believe about strings: All strings are words.
More seriously: While I find the topic appropriate for HN, connecting the topicality to the use of strings in IT is weird. If the ban only applied to audio or sign language, the topic wouldn’t be any less appropriate.
Sounds like the Republican party would really support the adoption Newspeak.
> It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought — that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc — should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.
This is ungood.
"Black"? Being a black man I am more interested in the context in which this list is applied and hope just the list/words in the abstract are not being simply used as rage bait.
Edit: I no longer think me being a black male is relevant in this context because after looking further into the list it basically covers multiple terms that apply to everyone; thus I think context of application is even more important and the list in itself is fairly irrelevant.
In the context of "anti-woke" ideology. Many people currently in power believe that if we do not talk about race, by literally not using the words, that longstanding societal issues will simply disappear. Same too with many scientific principals. In power or not, these people are idiots.
Agreed, but I and obviously you are not and we do not have to pretend to be by becoming enraged at their idiotic behavior if it has no material impact.
Secondly, I do not agree that they think issues will "disappear"; I believe that they simply think this gives them license to impose their will on the groups that identify with said banned terms.
"anti-woke" is also an unhelpful label, given top Dems (who were pushing woke 1.0) are now re-branding to woke 2.0.
Imposing one's will upon other people is the primary driver of modern politics. Live and let live is gone.
It's an ostrich worldview, it occurs in other contexts well:
Trump on COVID: "If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any"
Or more recently, Trump March EO from March: "Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame"
So they see efforts so shed light on America's dark history as deepinging social devide and fostering national shame. What's the proposed solution? Make everything right? Bring accountability? No, it's ostrich time! The order:
“ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties … do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living … and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/rest...
(Also hilarious that these days whitehouse.gov deploys more dark patterns than whitehouse.com)
Here's an incomplete list of what they've done so far:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trump-administratio...
A court-ordered inventory showed that the Park Service had removed at least 51 exhibits from 37 parks and monuments. The removed or targeted material involved slavery, civil rights, Indigenous history, womens rights, Japanese American incarceration, LGBTQ history, and climate change.
They do the opposite as well: saying things and insisting that alone makes them true.
e.g. Renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Claiming the 2020 election was rigged. Deciding they have the unilateral right to invade countries.
No, that's the lie they tell to hide the actual intent of fostering white supremacy without having to say so.
> Many people currently in power believe that if we do not talk about race, by literally not using the words, that longstanding societal issues will simply disappear.
Australia used to have a "White Australia Policy". It was introduced in 1901, but began to be progressively relaxed after WW2 before finally being completely abolished in 1973. The policy involved a general ban on non-European immigrants - and even at times Eastern and Southern Europeans too – although it was never exceptionless (e.g. Maori immigration was always allowed, to avoid upsetting New Zealand; originally only Ashkenazi Jews were allowed to immigrate, but in the 1950s they started allowing Middle Eastern Jews as well.)
So, in that respect, Australia does have certain parallels to US history on race; and the dismantling of the White Australia Policy roughly overlaps the US Civil Rights Era, and Australian developments were likely partially influenced by that concurrent struggle in the US.
However, the way post-1973 Australian officialdom responded to the abolition of the White Australian Policy was very different from subsequent developments in the US. The Australian official philosophy was to stop classifying people on the basis of race – the Australian census asks about ancestry, country of birth (for both self and parents), ethnic identity, indigenous status, language, nationality, religion–but never race; all these concepts partially overlap with notions of "race", but none of them can be straightforwardly identified with it. In fact, the Australian Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups (ASCCEG), groups ethnicities together based on continent of origin, not "race" – so African-Americans and White Americans are grouped together as "peoples of the Americas", while Egyptians and Kenyans and Afrikaners are all "peoples of Africa".
Now, this decision didn't magically solve all issues with inequality and discrimination in Australia – but did it cause harm? My own honest impression is that, overall, its benefits have likely outweighed the downsides. And, due to the influence of US media, there has been a growing subset of Australians – primarily on the left – who have adopted more US-influenced ways of thinking about and speaking about race and ethnicity – and I'm not convinced that has been beneficial.
Of course, whatever Trump and the GOP are doing isn't necessarily the same thing as what Australian politicians and bureaucrats – on both sides of the political aisle – have done. There are significant differences in context and history. But they aren't completely different either. My own impression as an outside observer of the US, is a lot of narratives which Americans tell themselves (on both sides) make the most sense when you avoid looking at other countries as comparators.
Postscript: inevitably some will respond by bringing Indigneous matters into the discussion–but indigeneity and race are fundamentally different things. To quote Australian Indigenous activist Noel Pearson, "If we were in Lapland, we would be blond and blue-eyed and we’d still be Indigenous.” Consider someone like Dr Gordon Reid MP, the federal Member for Robertson – he publicly identifies as a "proud Wiradjuri man", but physically he appears indistinguishable from Anglo-Celtic Australians.
Not an American but, if I had to guess, it would be 'Black' with a capital letter (as in the list of words) and not 'black' all in lowercase. It is likely to align the use of capital letters with other races in the US (white and black, for example, instead of white and Black).
For context on PEN America, from Wikipedia[1]
> PEN America (formerly PEN American Center), founded in 1922, and headquartered in New York City, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
> whose goal is to raise awareness for the protection of free expression in the United States and worldwide through the advancement of
> literature and human rights.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEN_America
While laudable, first amendment protections don’t apply to government institutions.
Their CEO was in the Obama admin, and they didn't really press Biden/Obama to the same extent with high profile advocacy on whistleblowers, Assange, Espionage Act, etc.
This is a left wing think tank.
Edit: article flagged presumably for bias.
It has reached beyond government institutions. From the linked article:
"These policies’ tentacles already extend beyond government websites... Reports say scientists are self-censoring in hopes of improving their chances of getting government grants."
In regards to government institutions, limiting speech in this way will cause people to die.
For example, banning the phrase "air pollution" will curtail efforts to address air pollution, e.g. scientists not submitting research proposals addressing air pollution, causing people to die as a result[1].
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/climate-health/php/effects/air-pollution...
Diesel, Ethanol, Pyrolysis? Haha, odd. I know this is supposed to be “not allowed in government documents” and so on but I think it would be useful to have a list of “words that are not permitted to be used in the US”.
It could be a convenience list that one could refer to to ensure that they’re not about to say a banned word. E.g. obviously the n word and r word are on it, but is homeless on it? Gay? A single source of truth to know what you’re not allowed to say would be good.
Years ago I worked inside Akismet - https://akismet.com - which is an Automattic product.
Akismet, along with user chosen comment moderated lists in 'Comments > Discussion' would not publish certain comment content.
For example, you put 'bad' in to your moderation list and if someone wrote 'badger' your comment was moderated, and probably deleted.
Various sites had "Copy this Bad Words List"
There was/is a medication called cialis
Lots of spam - email, web, comment, used those 6 letters
There was a HUGE amount of comments caught that used socialist, socialism in the US elections.
Can that list be real? If so, it's absolutely crazy. A lot of very common words are blocked.
~200 of the 350 come from a suit brought against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The rest are probably true in a sense but not written down like those are.
Yes. The page cites numerous sources. It may vary by agency.
Example: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/07/us/trump-fede...
I don't understand. Is "woman" not allowed to appear in any govt. website? What??
I think they'd prefer it replaced with female in every and all cases :(
I think our priorities are so effed right now smh
female is also on that list...
The approved term is “Axlotl tank”
It clearly can.
“At risk” is censored. That’s wild.
How are we supposed to have a serious conversation about risk then?
America 250